OH DEAR, WHAT A FALL WAS THERE!

Mercifully, Kenny Anthony has now been completely eviscerated from the bowels of our country, never again to take any decision on our behalf, as our delegate. For one who on that unforgettable 1997 night of his 16-1 election victory confessed he had “never seen so much love”, that love must have really turned too sour for the nation’s palate to have been flung so far down from the heaven where he shone beyond compare. Oh, what lesson to learn! What an example to avoid!

I revel not in his discomfiture, nor do I revile him for his callousness, vindictiveness and worse. I only urge him to be repentant. That, for me, would be sufficient satisfaction for his waywardness as prime minister, and for all the hardship he brought upon those who were labelled enemies.

Former foreign affairs minister Neville Cenac (right) shares a word with Rick Wayne at a party convention in Micoud back in the early 80s.

My real dissatisfaction is not as much with him as it is with those elected with him to guide him when he had lost his way. In all his dictatorial ways, their silence has been palpable. It is impalpable to reason that though elected on the same footing as himself, and without whom he could not have existed, they should have so subordinated themselves as mere minions “for a mess of pottage”.

Their sentence should have been more severe than his, as betrayers of the public trust. For that abdication of their sacred duty, those re-elected with him should at the first meeting of the Honourable House, join with their fallen leader and make “a firm purpose of amendment” in accordance with the Christian principles they all avow.

I now wish, on behalf of the people of Saint Lucia, and in my own, to pay tribute to Mr. Rick Wayne for his indomitable spirit and for his relentless and implacable commitment as a journalist to keep all governments on their toes, by exposing their dark, callous and obscure deeds.

And lastly: I would invite the new government and all succeeding governments thereafter, to consider the following prayer as one fit for the House, in the circumstances. The scholar who wrote the First English Dictionary was asked by his close peers to compose a prayer for the nation, and he obliged. In keeping with the Lord’s Prayer, he wrote:

“Almighty God: enlighten my understanding with knowledge of right and govern my will by thy laws, that no deceit may mislead me nor temptation corrupt me, that I may always endeavour to do good, and hinder evil.”